I had the opportunity to provide a few thoughts on how to drive traffic to social media channels to dBusiness readers. People create content, but then they often forget that people won’t magically find it:

Like this:

Never judge a book by its cover. It’s an old adage and we’ve all heard it all before. I had two incidents that really made me question this line of thought recently.

After picking up my car from maintenance a few weeks ago, I stopped by the dealer’s body shop for a quote on repairing some damage to my car. The estimator came out, walked a quarter of the way around my car, looked me up and down and said, “It’s going to be expensive.” By itself, I wouldn’t have thought much of it. But she walked another quarter of the way around the car, stopped, said again, “It’s going to be expensive.” And she stood there as if she was waiting for me to call the entire quote off. I didn’t know what she wanted from me. Just write the quote.

Did I tell you I was wearing jeans and a t-shirt? I had a backpack slung casually over one shoulder. Clad in tennis shoes. My hair was a little messed up…I had gone down to the gym while I wait for my car to come out of maintenance.

I was being judged. Apparently, I didn’t look like I could afford the repairs (When I received the quote, it was very reasonable). How could she assume that I couldn’t afford the repair? Sharing the story with a friend, the friend encouraged me. I should be insulted.

But a few days later, it turned out that I was on the (somewhat) opposite side of the situation. I attended a short meeting, featuring three or four speaks. The event was going very well until we reached the last speaker. Now I admit, I was not the least bit interested in what she had to say-so maybe I had more time to be critical of her. She was dowdy… Her clothing fit her frame very awkwardly. And the clothing was frumpy: a billowy blouse in a dated color, a wooly sweater tossed uncaringly over it. Her navy polyester pants seemed to accentuate her ample hips and waist while still sagging in several spots.

And this woman was an authority? She looked like a middle age mom (not to be unkind to middle age moms…) Not an industry expert.

Here message lost its oomph. She didn’t look the part. I dismissed her. She should have worn a suit, I thought. Industry experts wear suits.

I think I’ve written about this before. It DOES matter what you look like. Dress the part if you want the respect and authority. We are a visual society no matter what we’re told as kids. I guess I think it should be contextual. If I’m at the auto body shop, one would find it difficult to assess my finances when I’m wearing jeans and a t-shirt. If I’m speaking to a group of people as an expert source, it DOES matter.

What do you think? Am I wrong? Should I become more liberal in my views? Open my mind? Nawwwww….. I think I’m correct, but open to hearing from you. Let me know.